


I Read Your Life Out Loud (It Hasn't Even Ended)

by sweetNsimple



Category: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter - Seth Grahame-Smith
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Fraternal Instincts, Head Injury, M/M, Other, bookverse, false identities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-06
Updated: 2014-05-06
Packaged: 2018-01-23 19:39:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1577162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetNsimple/pseuds/sweetNsimple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It took Seth an incredibly long moment before he wondered what they were waiting for.  The same Market street grapevine that had told him where Elah lived and about all the work he had been doing on his house last year hadn't mentioned someone living with Elah, or Elah hiring anyone to live in and work for him.  He didn't think any more work needed to be done and Seth didn't even see where it would be needed – from the long front lawn to the outward appearance of the mansion, everything was beautiful and complete.  The windows were stained glass, the paint white, and the trees outside, if his high school horticulture could still be trusted, were apple trees.  It almost looked like a church.</p><p>A church they were waiting outside of.</p><p>“Don't hurt yourself thinking about it,” Elah told him, slight amusement in his voice.  “Also, you should know – my name isn't actually Elah Todd.  We'll get to that later, however.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Read Your Life Out Loud (It Hasn't Even Ended)

This  would be the first time that Seth Grahame-Smith was brought to the manor off of Route 9G, still bleeding, still in shock, not really understanding what was going on, but knowing his life would never be the same.  He stared at Elah Todd, wondering if he would see the web of dark veins beneath translucent skin again if he looked long enough, if the moonlight would gleam off of fangs through the part of his mouth if he watched for it. Elah's sunglasses were folded and hanging from the collar of his  T-shirt, his blazer open. His eyes were brown, just brown. Normal, human brown. Seth stared hard, numb and confused, and wondered if he'd hallucinated it all. If he had  a concussion and all of this was just a bad dream. 

 

“You're not dreaming,” Elah told him, making Seth flinch. “This is, in fact, reality, and I do not go around all day and night with my fangs out, that would be stupid.” He pulled up the wraparound driveway and parked in front of a large, Victorian-style house. Seth only glanced at it, then quickly went back to staring at Elah.

 

Except he was staring at an empty seat and his side door was already opening. He made an embarrassing noise of panic as a hand grasped his upper arm and gently led him out of the Ferrari. 

 

“Hush now, you're fine, I'm not going to eat you, God forbid.” Elah led him up the stairs to the front door and then... just waited. Didn't knock, didn't pull out a key, just waited outside of his own house like it was completely normal. 

 

It took Seth an incredibly long moment before he wondered what they were waiting for. The same Market street grapevine that had told him where Elah lived and about all the work he had been doing on his house  last year  hadn't mentioned someone living with Elah, or Elah hiring anyone to live in and work for him.  He didn't think any more work needed to be done  and Seth didn't even see where  it would be needed – from the long front lawn to the outward appearance of the mansion, everything was beautiful and complete. The windows were stained glass, the paint white, and the trees outside, if his high school horticulture could still be trusted, were apple trees. It almost looked like a church.

 

A church they were waiting outside of.

 

“Don't hurt yourself thinking about it,” Elah told him, slight amusement in his voice. “Also, you should know – my name isn't actually Elah Todd. We'll get to that later, however.”

 

Before Seth could focus his muddled mind on that, the double doors opened. Seth's meager attention was drawn away from Elah and focused on the man now in front of him. Some third sense told him that he had seen this man before, but the only word that came to mind was  _money_ . 

 

This man was not like Elah at all. He was tall and thin, and looked as old as his forties. His hair was dark brown and properly tamed where Elah's was mussy and black, his face angular, and he wore clothes not nearly as expensive looking, or, at least, as new.

 

“By God, Henry,” the man muttered. “What did you do to him?”

 

“ _I_ didn't do this to him, he did it to himself!”

 

“No, I didn't,” Seth whined, sounding incredibly childish even to himself. “The table did. And you made me do it.”

 

“Oh, hush and get inside, Abe and I will fix you up.”

 

Seth muttered that name to himself as he was switched from one arm to another and ended up against Abe's side.  _Abe Abe Abe Abe_ ... That was short for Abraham, wasn't it? And  _Henry_ , Abe had called Elah Henry, so Elah really wasn't his name? 

 

Seth looked up at Abe, who seemed even taller now that he was supporting Seth's weight. “Be honest, Abe,” he told him, and then laughed for reasons he wasn't completely sure of.

 

“I think he needs a hospital,” Abe told Henry. 

 

“He needs to know the truth,” Henry retorted. “This is his purpose, Abe. This is what he is meant to do.”

 

“Well, you haven't been wrong yet.”

 

“Of course not.”

 

“I don't see why we must endanger his life for it, nonetheless.”

 

“His life is not in danger, it's merely a bump on the head.”

 

“He's _bleeding_ , Henry.”

 

“It won't kill him. _We_ will not kill him. I will patch him up  and then – ”

 

“No.”

 

Seth looked around him, wondering who had just said what he was thinking, only to find that both Abe and Henry were staring at him.

 

“I said that.”

 

“Yes,” Abe said, nodding. “You did.”

 

“No more Elah,” Seth told Abe. “Or Henry, or Todd, or _vampire-what's-his-name_.  You patch me up,” he pointed at Henry, “You stay the Hell away from me. I'm staying with this guy, I like him, he didn't sneak up on me in a dark cellar when I thought I was alone.”

 

“Is that _really_ a grudge worth holding onto?” 

 

“You heard the man.” Abe sounded a bit amused as well as irritated as he shooed Henry away. “Be gone with you while I care to the poor fellow. Isn't it enough that you nearly brained him?”

 

“I'm beginning to think not.”

 

“It's too late for regrets,” Abe all but sang. He carefully carted Seth away. 

 

He wasn't fully aware of his surroundings, not till he was settled into a bathroom (there had to be more than one, this place was huge), and he felt like, maybe he  _should_ look around. 

 

He was not surprised at all that the bathroom... was a bathroom. It didn't look like something Elah would want, Seth had always figured him to be modern and glossy – then again, Elah wasn't Elah, he was  _Henry_ and Henry was a psychopath and maybe a mythological creature. But the bathroom was, nonetheless, sort of old century. The sink was installed into a rich wood cabinet, a rococo mirror (how did he know what that was?)  put above it, the walls were pristine white, the floor tiled, the  light fixture hanging, and a commode squeezed in for good nature. The shower/bath combination looked like the most pleasing and modern thing in the room and definitely took up the most space. 

 

“Henry despises this bathroom,” Abe told him, leaning Seth up against the cabinet with his back to the mirror. Seth blinked at him and wondered what he had said aloud. Abe merely smiled and gestured for Seth to come closer. He did, like a lost little child, and Abe gently fitted him into the curve of his arm and chest so that he could wrap an arm around Seth's shoulders and press a dry cloth to Seth's head wound.

 

He made a high-pitched noise of agony, but didn't push Abe away. The man was cold,  _really_ cold, and it sort of felt like a full-body icepack on Seth's sore nerves. 

 

“Now, were you unconscious at any point?” Abe asked him quietly.

 

Seth hummed an affirmative.

 

“I see... Are you stiff anywhere? Do you have a headache? Can you move your appendages?” Abe was patient to let Seth answer each question in his own time before asking the next one. Honestly, Seth thought them unfair – yes, he was sore, yes, he did have a headache, yes, he did feel somewhat like vomiting – but, damn it, he'd bashed his head after hours of sitting in one spot and then being forced into a car for a half hour. Anyone would be sore, in pain, and nauseous, it didn't _mean_ he needed hospital attention.

 

He sort of wanted hospital attention anyway, but,  _honestly_ .

 

_Honest Abe_ .

 

“You look like my money,” Seth told Abe.

 

He couldn't see it, but he thought he felt Abe grimace. “You would be surprised how many times I've heard that.”

 

“Are we _quite_ done nurturing the man?” Henry asked from the doorway. Seth didn't have the energy to startle and, actually, was too comfortable to care either way. “Why am I the only vampire he's uncomfortable with?”

 

“Because you brained him,” Abe said immediately. Seth was still mulling that over, however, because, _was there another vampire he should be aware of?_

 

Abe  _did_ feel very cold.

 

“Christ,” he muttered. “What am I doing here?”

 

“To discuss your purpose,” Henry announced, coming into the bathroom. “You know what I want you to do – now we must show you why. We do not expect you to tell any lies, to embellish any truths, or anything of the kind.”

 

“He says 'we',” Abe huffed. “But I agreed against this.”

 

“Yes, well, I outvote you. You see, Seth, _I_ want you to _tell_ the truth. So that people may know... the whole of the truth instead of just a fraction.”

 

There was a moment of silence. Seth shifted enough to see that Abe was staring over his head, probably holding eye contact with Henry. He looked grim. And kind of old. Seth thought he might be missing something, like glasses or a shave or maybe a hat –

 

Seth had a sudden moment of clarity. “Oh, God, Abraham Lincoln.”

 

“Abe, if you would,” Henry said.

 

“Joash Todd, if anyone asks,” Abe corrected at the same time.

 

“But _he's_ Todd if anyone asks.”

 

“Yes, well...” Abe carefully cleared his throat.

 

Seth groped around, both for a clue as to why Henry was laughing and for Abe's support as he pulled himself up, and – oh.

 

Seth looked down at Abe's left hand. He wore a simple golden ring.

 

“The seventeenth president of the United States of America is a vampire married to another vampire.” Seth whimpered low in his throat. “What have I done to deserve this?”

 

“Sixteenth,” Henry corrected. “And you'll find that this isn't the curse you're imagining it to be.”

 

He highly doubted that. He still let Abe lead him out of the bathroom a long, spacious dining room. They all sat at one corner of the table, Abe still holding the towel to Seth's head, and... they talked.

 

About everything in the book, and things Abe hadn't written in the book, and about the things they would do that night.

 

They were going to take Seth out hunting  vampires.

 

“Do not fear,” Abe said, like a fearless father, smiling at him. “No harm will come to you, I swear on my existence.”

 

“And since I can not let Abe's existence end, yours will not either,” Henry seconded.

 

“I think I should go to a hospital,” Seth said in a quiet voice. “I, I think, yeah, I think I have a concussion, I should go.”

 

“It's more shock than trauma,” Abe told him, tearing down his excuses. “And we must do this tonight, while we have you.”

 

“You will never see us again after tonight,” said Henry. “We must go. Now.”

 

And,  damn Seth's soul to Hell, they did.

 

*

 

He had moved up in life since publishing  _Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter_ . From the cellar of his dying shop to Abe's and Henry's old house (though not by any means of his own, but, instead, by 'Joash's' and 'Elah's' will). He had looked and discovered that, yes, there was a house beneath the house, and, for his pleasure, Abe and Henry hadn't filled it in with dirt.

 

He liked the underground house better. It was like the cellar he had spent so long obsessing in, getting lost in, living in. Except it was roomier, grander, somehow, and no one else knew about it. His wife and children had come to live with him after he had asked them to. They still weren't together, but at least he wasn't separated from his children anymore. 

 

Not even they knew about this place.

 

Seth had moved a computer and printer into one of the rooms, reference books into another, and a mattress into the third room, when he didn't feel like going back to the real world. He was typing and thinking, reading from  _Pride and Prejudice_ , and highlighting passages, then bookmarking others. 

 

There was a polite cough from behind him, and he just barely managed to stop himself from leaping into his computer.

 

“Christ!”

 

“At least you didn't hurt yourself this time,” came Henry's voice from the darkness of one of the corners. He moved forward into the light shed by Seth's lamp, smiling slightly. “Already hard at work for your next novel, I see. Your first was greatly appreciated.”

 

“Thanks... I thought you said I wouldn't see you again.”

 

“Time makes liars of us all,” he quoted carelessly. “Abe told me to check on you.”

 

Seth couldn't help but smile. “He would.”

 

“Indeed, he would.”

 

Seth turned his chair to stare at him. “There's a lot I left out of the book.”

 

“I noticed.”

 

“But there's a lot that Abe left out of his journals, too.”

 

“Oh? Is that so? How would you have noticed what wasn't written?”

 

Seth let loose a slow breath. “When he was sixteen and staying with you in the woods... That's when your relationship began, didn't it? Your romantic relationship”

 

“That's a private matter... But, yes. Yes, it began there.”

 

“Didn't you have a problem with him falling in love with other women? Having kids, getting married? If it were me...” He imagined that for a moment, when he and his wife's relationship had been new and passionate. He would have cried some ugly tears had she gone to another man, been his wife, had his kids, and all they could be to each other was friends.

 

“My life is not as short as yours, Seth, you forget that. I encouraged him to find another once he left me. The heart is capable of loving more than one person, and in more than one way. I knew that I was his first and that I would be his last, and that was what mattered. What happened in between, the young life he led, it only worked to make us stronger.”

 

Seth digested that for a moment. Then, “He begged. When he became depressed, he begged that you wouldn't turn him.”

 

“I know.”

 

“You did it anyway.”

 

“Some men are just too interesting to die.”

 

“You let Martin Luther King Jr. die.”

 

“He wasn't my Abraham.”

 

“Why did you do it?”

 

Henry stared at him for a long time, unblinking and unmoving, like a statue or a predator. Seth couldn't decide and, what more, he wasn't sure if he felt safe at the other end of that look.

 

“You wrote it yourself, Seth – it takes a strong will and great purpose to survive four hundred years. I was already old by the time I met Abe, old and tired. If I had let him go, chances are strong that I would not have been far behind him.”

 

“ _Romeo and Juliet_?”

 

“Our love was neither that of a teenager's, nor built in a matter of days, but, yes, I suppose I was somewhat Shakespearean at the end.” Henry pivoted and changed the subject just as smoothly. “Your family is here, yet you and your wife still sleep apart.”

 

“We aren't in love like we used to be,” Seth admitted quietly. It was easier than talking about the stress and the lies that had become a part of their everyday life once he had begun writing Abe's book. “I don't understand how you and Abe have lasted almost two hundred years.”

 

“Soulmates, Seth. Or, soul _less_ mates, if you want to be specific. Abraham's last was his mother, and the loves he had between did not go so deep, but what we had, what we have, is inescapable. Nonetheless, even we sometimes need time away from each other, an adventure all our own.”

 

“With all its own conquests?” Seth asked slyly.

 

“Heavens, no, we're married. Abe would sooner chop off my manhood than forsake our vows. He wouldn't even lay with me while he was married, not even a single kiss. If there is any deviance to be had, it's with each other.”

 

Seth almost asked how it was possible to keep a love life alive for that long when he and his wife hadn't even been sleeping together that often  _before_ they separated after only  nine years. Then, when Henry's expression turned wicked and amused, he decided against it and held up his hands for mercy. “I don't want to know.”

 

“If it is fun I could be having with someone else,” Henry said anyway, “it is fun I could be having with Abe. Speaking of which, what shall I report back? That you're healthy, that you're safe, that's your halfway-sane and interested in our romance like a lovestruck child?”

 

Seth rolled his eyes and, for a moment, forgot he was talking to a creature four and a half centuries old when, “Sure, dad, you go do that,” came out of his mouth.

 

Henry smiled at Seth's instant panic. He came forward and pressed a gentle, fraternal kiss to Seth's brow. “Of course, son. Remember, we're very proud of you.”

 

Just like that, Henry Sturges...

 

Was gone.

 

And, this time, he never did come back. Not in Seth's lifetime, anyway.

 

**Author's Note:**

> 'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter' by Seth Grahame-Smith, Introduction page 15 - 
> 
> "It turns out that the towering myth of Honest Abe, the one ingrained in our earliest grade school memories, is inherently dishonest. Nothing more than a patchwork of half-truths and omissions.   
> What follows nearly ruined my life.  
> What follows, at last, is the truth.  
>  \- Seth Grahame-Smith  
>  Rhinebeck, New York  
>  January 2010"


End file.
